


You Can't Be Good At Everything

by RayneSummer



Series: Round Table Knights + Merlin [1]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Gen, Idk what this is just take it, merlin is bad at healing magic, which is inconvinient considering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-30
Updated: 2020-05-30
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:20:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24455827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RayneSummer/pseuds/RayneSummer
Summary: “Why don’t you fix it?” Lancelot suggested, raising a knowing eyebrow when Merlin looked up at him in confusion.“Oh.” He removed the finger from his mouth again and shook his head with a chuckle. “Oh, no, I’m terrible at healing magic.”“He is,” Gaius said from across the room without looking up.
Relationships: Gaius & Merlin (Merlin), Lancelot & Merlin (Merlin)
Series: Round Table Knights + Merlin [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1813621
Comments: 3
Kudos: 190





	You Can't Be Good At Everything

Lancelot had taken to retreating back to the Court Physician’s chambers with Merlin occasionally at the end of a day, just to perhaps help out or just talk. It was nice there, and there were unlikely to be disturbed so late.

Merlin was sitting at a table, ignoring his half eaten dinner and flicking through his magic book, while Lancelot examined a few artifacts Gaius had been given recently to try and determine exactly where they were and what they could do. (Which was basically nothing but the king wasn’t to be discouraged where he thought magic was around)

Gaius had long since pronounced them not dangerous in the slightest and had retreated to his writing desk to read. A comfortable silence surrounded the room, suddenly broken by a yelp.

“Ow!” Merlin shook his hand out with a frown as Lancelot looked up.

“What is it?” Gaius asked with taking his eyes off the page he was reading.

Merlin stuck his finger in his mouth. “Papercut,” he muttered around it.

Gaius just hummed in reply, glancing up briefly to see Merlin taking his finger out of his mouth and glaring at it in annoyance, before going back to the words, satisfied the boy was telling the truth and there was no danger. (He could never be sure with that child.)

Lancelot wandered over to his friend, smiling a little at the pout Merlin gave the offending book as he put his finger back in his mouth, trying to take the annoying pain away.

“Why don’t you fix it?” Lancelot suggested, raising a knowing eyebrow when Merlin looked up at him in confusion.

“Oh.” He removed the finger from his mouth again and shook his head with a chuckle. “Oh, no, I’m terrible at healing magic.”

“He is,” Gaius said from across the room without looking up.

Merlin nodded earnestly. “See?”

Lancelot looked curiously between the two. “And are you?” He asked the older man with genuine interest. Gaius looked up and gave the knight a signature look.

Merlin snorted. “Of course not.” And just grinned as his mentor fixed him with the same warning look, then muttered with a little humour, almost too quietly to hear, “Your expectations are probably high because of Alice.”

“Who’s Alice?” Lancelot asked, watching Merlin close enough to see the boy’s expression suddenly change before he masked it and shrugged, waving a hand to indicate it didn’t matter.

Gaius snapped the book he was reading closed. “I expect you not to try healing spells on living things unless you are sure it will work,” he said pointedly.

“That sparrow was not my fault.” Merlin made a face and turned back to examining the bead of blood on his finger. “I didn’t think I’d turn it into a herb.”

Lancelot looked curiously between the two, clearly missing out on something somewhat amusing.

“Anyway, I did alright with Gwen’s father!”

“That was a poultice, not a direct spell,” Gaius replied mildly, looking for another book related to whatever he was currently researching. Merlin shrugged, counting it as a win regardless.

Resigning himself to the fact that he couldn’t know everything Merlin had done in his life, Lancelot took a seat next to him on the bench. “Well, you can’t be the best at everything,” he said patiently, fully aware that the warlock was often personally offended when he couldn’t do something he felt he should be able to.

Merlin resisted rolling his eyes.

“It would be extremely helpful though, considering all the trouble the prat gets himself into,” he grumbled, starting to leaf through his book again with the painful finger held out in an amusing fashion.

Lancelot had to agree with that. And to be fair, it wasn’t only Arthur either – the rest of the knights were also similarly reckless often. Last time they went hunting Elyan had accidently poisoned himself and Gwaine by eating berries they hadn’t properly examined. Thankfully it had been mild and Merlin had given the two a vile tasting potion to counteract the nausea and sent them to bed to sleep it off when the party got back with a fierce reprimand not to eat random food in the forest.

Considering he had grown up with plants and trees in a small village, it was fair to assume he knew better than most about the good and dangerous properties of nature, not to mention the time he spent gathering various medicinal herbs and going on expeditions.

Gwaine had been sincerely apologetic, apparently not able to handle Merlin even being vaguely angry at him, and had practically begged to join the man on his next herb gathering trip. Luckily they’d had a good time and Merlin had taught him a few things to keep them safer while out.

So it did not seem very far-fetched that Arthur would be similarly useless in the forest.

“I can see that,” Lancelot chuckled, watching fondly as Merlin glanced up at him with a grin that came with talking about the prince.

“You don’t even know.” He groaned dramatically and sat back.

Lancelot rearranged his features into a sympathetic grimace for the long-suffering manservant. He gestured around. “But you do live with the court physician, so it’s not like you have to rely on your magic to heal,” he pointed out reasonably. Merlin did not look particularly appeased.

He sighed. “Yes, I have caught on with… a few things,” he admitted, glancing over at Gaius almost sheepishly.

Truthfully, despite his constant good intentions, he wasn’t a natural healer. He’d learned plenty here and there under careful guidance, since being the physician’s ward came with knowledge of what surrounded them, and was good at keeping relatively calm in situations. But Merlin was often afraid of not being able to help, by conventional or magical means, and as a result being forced to watch someone he cared about in pain or even dying.

“I wish I knew more but it’s just not natural to me like it is to Gaius,” he muttered to Lancelot, quiet enough that the physician in question, across the room, may not hear it.

Lancelot frowned, leaning in. “What do you mean?”

Merlin seemed to backtrack, and shrugged, gesturing vaguely. “Well, it is his job, after all. But I know for a fact that he’s used magic to heal me, at least once when I was poisoned.”

“And what’s wrong with that?”

He glanced away. “Nothing. Just, I wish I could help more.”

Lancelot patted his shoulder kindly. “You can learn,” he said. “It’s good to have both normal and magically knowledge.”

Merlin smiled in thanks and sighed, leaning back in his chair again and absently rubbing his finger.

“What about your own magic, doesn’t that heal you?” Lancelot suddenly asked with a curious frown as Merlin put his injured finger back in his mouth to clean it off the beads of blood, but removed it again at the question, shaking his head a little.

“Not really. Only if I’m literally dying.” He rolled his eyes, probably thinking of a time when that had happened. “It’ll keep me going though. Gaius thinks it acts like adrenaline,” he offered, gesturing across the room.

Gaius sighed and levelled a look at the boy’s innocent expression. “Yes, but Merlin, that does not mean you ought to push yourself.” His tone suggested this was something he had said several times, and Lancelot smiled a little. Merlin may hear but that didn’t mean he listened sometimes.

Typically, the boy shrugged, waving off the reprimand.

“So, I’m to gather that I shouldn’t let you use healing magic?”

Merlin gave the knights a bordering on hurt look at though worried he didn’t trust him, but stopped at Lancelot’s amused smile.

“Yes please, sir Lancelot,” Gaius interrupted from where he had gone back to his books, clearly tired of a conversation that had probably happened before. “You do that.”

**Author's Note:**

> I started this a couple days ago so decided to finish it even though it's dumb and idk what it's even about  
> I just like them hanging out and chatting idk


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